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A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

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Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#71

Post by wpietri »

objclxt wrote: post #66
wpietri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that Coca Cola spends a billion dollars a year to reach people who are unfamiliar with their beverage? I'm not sure what conspiracy you think I'm suggesting. There is nothing particularly hidden about what advertisers do. Go talk to people who have made ads for a living. Or take a media literacy course. Heck, go watch the Superbowl beer commercials and tell us what novel product informati…

The beer commercials are actually quite a bad example in this case: Coca Cola certainly don't spend billions a year to reach people unfamiliar with their beverages. Beer companies do. A major target market for alcohol is those either underage or just starting drinking. Habits and personally preferences are frequently set very early on - Superbowl beer commercials may be designed for press, but a significant bulk of a…

They're a great example of the low informational content. The point of the commercials isn't to inform people of the existence of Budweiser. As you say, the purpose is to persuade them to drink it.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#72

Post by wdewind »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #68
wpietri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising can add value when it transmits novel information that would be hard to get some other way. But it usually doesn't. It's mainly an arms race to distort natural market outcomes. Coca Cola doesn't spend over a billion dollars a year advertising because they want to make you aware of some new fact. They just think they can make much more than that billion back by manipulating you.

Part of that is due to distortions caused by tax regulations. Advertising spending is basically a tax writeoff so effectively costs nothing.

How is advertising spending basically a tax write off that effectively costs nothing?

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#73

Post by wpietri »

drumdance wrote: post #67
wpietri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising can add value when it transmits novel information that would be hard to get some other way. But it usually doesn't. It's mainly an arms race to distort natural market outcomes. Coca Cola doesn't spend over a billion dollars a year advertising because they want to make you aware of some new fact. They just think they can make much more than that billion back by manipulating you.

What is a "natural market outcome?"

By natural I mean "unmanipulated". Here, it's sense 6: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natural#Adjective

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#74

Post by onedev »

kcodey wrote: post #6

Think of it like FM radio. It's free for us to listen but we have to sit through advertisements. XM and sirius said hey, let's have people pay to listen, so don't have to make them sit through ads. Basically just a different biz model. That model can work though because you don't necessarily need critical mass to have people consume your content. (Yes to a certain extent you do) But the critical mass needed for the n…

But they're also SATELLITE radio. That is a huge value add over traditional radio service. I don't think users were only paying for sirius/XM because the services didn't have ads. It was because the products were technically superior.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#75

Post by wpietri »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #68
wpietri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising can add value when it transmits novel information that would be hard to get some other way. But it usually doesn't. It's mainly an arms race to distort natural market outcomes. Coca Cola doesn't spend over a billion dollars a year advertising because they want to make you aware of some new fact. They just think they can make much more than that billion back by manipulating you.

Part of that is due to distortions caused by tax regulations. Advertising spending is basically a tax writeoff so effectively costs nothing.

I'd love to see some evidence for that.

As far as I know, it's just another business expense, which means you deduct it from your profits. Coca Cola paid about 17% in taxes for 2010 [1], so if you squint hard enough I guess you could look at it as a 17% subsidy. But since that's true of any reasonable business expenditure, I don't see it as a significantly distorting incentive.

[1] http://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NYSE/Company/Coca-Cola-Co/F...

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#76

Post by wpietri »

eykanal wrote: post #32
mibbitier wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that advertisers never meet users needs. If I'm selling you a bike, and I also tell you about a good deal on bike insurance you can get, then I'm advertising at you. Maybe I get a cut of the insurance premium. BUT, I'm also adding value for the customer. It's a mutually beneficial transaction. I know it's blasphemy to claim that advertising is sometimes pretty damn useful around these parts, but the f…

Change that to "internet advertisers", and that is exactly my assumption. Personally, I think that is a fine assumption to make. I have never seen an advertisement add value to a internet-based conversation I was having or article I was reading on the net.

Yes.

The one area where I see advertisements providing value to those viewing them is in search and search-like contexts. In user testing, one of my colleagues was having a guy go Google searches for particular products. The guy said, "I'll tell you a secret. I ignore the stuff on the left. The really good stuff is in blue on the right."

But everywhere else, the purpose of the ads is to distract you from whatever you're trying to do. Which is a real struggle for Facebook; gossip is so much more interesting then your average ad that their click-through rates are terrible.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#77

Post by bobbles »

tlogan wrote: post #48
chimi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I reading it incorrectly? It says, "You'll be committing to prepaying for a full year of 'member-level' service." That doesn't sound like, "You get a year of service."

Are you sure? Can somebody confirm this?

You pay $50. Email them asking for alpha access. They give you the account.

$100+ accounts are for developers & access to APIs.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#78

Post by briandear »

olliesaunders wrote: post #61
mibbitier wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice conspiracy theory. Advertising is there to make sure you're aware of something. It's telling you "Hey! There's this product/movie/service etc that you might not have known about". I find advertising extremely useful to know about new things.

This was what advertising was about in the 30s maybe. Since then its gotten sophisticated, employing tricks that prey on our comparatively unsophisticated psychology making you want things that you otherwise wouldn’t. Besides, if advertising didn’t exist or was illegal or something, couldn’t we just create a webapp to let people exchange information about interesting products and services and that would be the end of…

You don't have to buy everything you see just like you don't have to hit on every pretty girl that you see. We still have the power to say no, regardless of the messages. We could say that pretty girls everywhere leads to impure thoughts right? Advertising is just like a pretty girl -- you are under no obligation to act on your 'unsophisticated psychology.' if you disagree with me, then the terrorists have won.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#79

Post by briandear »

jlarocco wrote: post #58
mibbitier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when amazon suggests that you might want to buy a certain bike helmet based on the fact you're buying a bike, you find that information utterly useless?

I do find it utterly useless. If I'm buying a bike then I either already have a helmet, or already know I need to buy one. So what value is the ad providing? I'm not going to blindly purchase something without doing at least a little research (to check prices, at the very least), so the ad is just getting in the way and wasting bandwidth.

So how do you find out about anything? Even in the Bike shop, they have product displays to show off products-- that is advertising. The funny thing is you are likely subconsciously exposed to products that you eventually buy all while thinking that you 'discovered' the product on some hipster blog while pretending that you're impervious. You wouldn't know about any new movie unless they were advertised. Unless you read reviews which, are seeded by the film's PR department which is, in effect advertising. Don't be so sanctimonious. You cannot honestly say you never tried a new restaurant unless expressly recommended by a friend. Those signs in front of restaurants.. You guessed it, advertising. You're a consumer whether you admit it or not.

Re: A Fee-Based Twitter Is No More Ideologically Pure Than An Ad-Supported Twitter

#80

Post by cadlin »

eykanal wrote: post #14

Following the model from the article: In the fee-based model, the needs of the following must be met: (1) the company, (2) the users. In the ads-based model, the needs of the following must be met: (1) the company, (2) the advertisers, (3) the users. By removing the advertisers from the equation, a lot of resources are freed up to address the needs of the other two parties. It's kind of strange to say that "the compa…

I think the article is alluding to the fact that charging users gives a business an incentive to milk those users.

It's similar to the debate about customer support as an avenue for sales or as an expense. The business's incentive is to provide the worst customer support it can without making users drop the service.

Another example would be video games and DLC. Companies can wall off features that should be "in the game" and force their customers to pay extra for it.

I don't necessarily buy his argument, but it's not entirely black and white.

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